Microsoft had a grand idea for a promotion: release five weeks of great games …

Share this story

Downloadable games have become the hotness in the past few weeks, and Microsoft has learned a valuable lesson from its "Summer of Arcade" promotion. The premise was simple: the company releases five weeks' worth of great games, hypes them with some prizes, and hopefully people get excited about Xbox Live all over again. Not surprisingly, it worked.

"Over the course of the five-week Summer of Arcade program there was a 58 percent increase in unique members purchasing titles, and August broke the monthly revenue high by 67 percent," Microsoft has announced. "August was also the first time that an Xbox LIVE Arcade game landed in the top 3 most-viewed pages on Xbox.com. The reason for all of this success? The games were really good."

No one is blowing smoke here, the titles—ranging from Bionic Commando: Rearmed to Castle Crashers—were all amazing. It's a pretty crazy run of games when something as solid as Galaga Legions is the worst of the pack. Microsoft deserves these great numbers; the act of holding back all the most anticipated titles until they could be released in a row was genius, although things seem a little cold now that the promotion is over.

This simple thought, that good games sell better than bad ones, shows just how sadly lackluster the releases on the consoles' digital distribution platforms normally are. We track the releases week after week, and it's a good week when there are one or two titles to get excited about across all three consoles; Microsoft's five-week run of always having something to look forward to was a breath of fresh air.

I hope Nintendo and Sony are taking notes, and with a slate of games, including Burnout Paradise and Wipeout HD, last Thursday it looks like the PS3 is also ready to make big moves. We can only hope for a "Winter of Arcade" that's just as good.